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Clam Soup.

A French-style clam soup made with clams, onion, butter, spices, milk, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 12 ingredients
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Why it works: Clove and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 7,874 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Clam Soup.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the broth

  1. Fry the minced onion in butter until soft.

  2. Add hot water, mace, cloves, allspice, and peppercorns; boil for 15 minutes.

  3. Strain into a saucepan, add chopped clams and clam juice or hot water; simmer for 2 hours.

  4. Strain again and rub the pulp through a sieve into the liquid.

  5. Keep the soup lukewarm.

Finish and serve

  1. In a separate saucepan, boil the milk, whisking it into the soup.

  2. Dissolve flour in cold milk, add to the soup, and season to taste.

  3. Heat gently to near boiling, then pour into a heated tureen.

  4. Serve with or without fried bread (croutons).

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Clove + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together7,874 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Mace + clovetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  3. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Mace + allspicetop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,189 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Clam + buttertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together840 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Hard shell clams
Provide the main clam flavour and body when minced and simmered into the broth.
Milk
Adds richness and a creamy, smooth body to the finished soup.
Butter
Softens the onion and carries aroma into the base of the soup.
Flour
Thickens the milk slightly so the soup feels smoother and less watery.
Onion
Builds a sweet, savoury base flavour when softened in butter.

The step that matters

Whisking the milk into the soup. Flour dissolved in cold milk and added to hot liquid can clump if not whisked well, and boiling milk can curdle or scorch. Keep the heat gentle and stir steadily so the soup stays smooth.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (clam, onion, butter, clove, allspice, milk, flour):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Nutmegfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against clam, onion, butter, clove, allspice, milk, flour. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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